


picking out our eyes by coal and candlelight

by bronson



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-31
Updated: 2012-05-31
Packaged: 2017-11-06 10:56:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/418078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bronson/pseuds/bronson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Potter AU. For the inception_kink prompt: "Cobb - James, Arthur - Remus, Eames - Sirius, Yusuf - Peter, Ariadne - Lily, Saito..... Tom Riddle?? idek." </p><p>Set pre-War, with Mal as Lily instead of Ariadne, and Nash as Saito instead of Yusuf. Warning: Character death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	picking out our eyes by coal and candlelight

Cobb and Mal die on a Tuesday, to an explosion of brilliant green light.  
  
Three days later, he’s inside a very familiar shack near a very familiar castle with Philippa and James tucked in a narrow bed that neither of them deserves at all.  
  
“Do you have food with you?” Eames asks in a rush of breathlessness that ruins the eerie silence.  
  
Arthur’s sat by the bed, resting just against it. He nods heavily and sees nothing but the dirt on the flimsy hardwood floors and the singed cuffs of his shirt.  
  
Eames’ feet come into his line of sight, followed by knees thick with dirt and dried earth, then Eames is there, holding his face in his calloused hands.  
  
His eyes are almost kind, but they’re tired. They all are.  
  
They’ve been running for days.  
  
Eames is studying him like he studies other people, with eyes that are earnest and calculating, but when he blinks, his lips soften downwards, and Arthur thinks he hasn’t seen Eames look so  _fucking_  sad in a very long time.  
  
Arthur opens his mouth because times like these are when he’s supposed to say something to calm himself down. Because he’s the one who makes Eames smile sometimes, and because it’s too quiet that Arthur is almost afraid to look at the kids because however illogical it is to think that they’re dead, he can’t—  
  
\--then Eames’ arms wrap around him, and he stops thinking for just one second.  
  
He’s warm, like he’s always been, and Arthur’s breath tickles his neck as he heaves low, drawn-out breaths, sucking in the scent of sweat and grime and nights too long,  
  
 _too fucking long_ ,  
  
that Arthur falls asleep like that, with Eames’ legs pressing against his, reassured by the knowledge that he’s not running away from the world alone.  
  
***  
  
“Eames.”  
  
Eames grunts, barely shifting where he’s draped all over Arthur’s couch, laying on his front. His nose is buried into his elbow, his legs every which way, and Arthur thinks maybe he should mind that it’s too early in the morning to deal with this kind of mess.   
  
But he’s head is still floating from too much Butterbeer and muggle liquor that he finds he doesn’t much care that Eames is almost naked, with his shirt unbuttoned, riding up that Arthur can rest a hand there, right on his lower back, and it would feel warm, and smooth, and everything that he shouldn’t really think about right now when most of his sensibilities are busy battling an oncoming hangover.  
  
“Eames,” he tries again, kicking the couch with his foot. “Get up.”  
  
“Piss off.”  
  
“It’s almost lunch time.” When in doubt, use food.  
  
True enough, that gets more of a response than Eames’ colorful language. His head snaps up, and Arthur frowns in sympathy when his face pinches to a grimace at the sharp motion.  
  
“Yeah, I was afraid of that,” Arthur sighs, nudging Eames’ shoulder (gently, because he can be vindictive, and cruel, but there are times and places for both of those things) to make room for him on the couch.  
  
Eames indulges him, albeit begrudgingly, sitting up with a heavy sway of his torso.  
  
Arthur sits down, gingerly lowering himself until he’s sure he’s not going to puke all over Eames. “How are you feeling?”  
  
“Terrible,” Eames pulls out of what sounds like the bottom of his gut, guttural and viscous with not enough sleep. “Why do you even ask these things, honestly.”  
  
“It’s called courtesy.”  
  
Eames snorts, leaning his head back. He flinches when the angle allows a slash of unmerciful sunlight to sluice his eyes.  
  
“Here,” Arthur allows him, resting an arm along the back of the couch to make room for Eames.  
  
Eames sighs a thank you, or what should be a thank you, Arthur turns over in his head, if he’s drawn up the proper translations for Eames’ body language accurately enough in the ten years that he’s known him. He rests his head on Arthur’s lap and they lay there for a little while, enjoying the utter waste of time and the fact that they don’t really care that it’s gone five, ten, fifteen minutes.  
  
It’s quiet and it’s comfortable, and Arthur’s fingers are threading through Eames’ hair and Eames’ palm is delightfully warm on Arthur’s thigh.   
  
“Where’s your wand?”Arthur asks idly, his hand coming to tap Eames on the cheek, then lingers there for a moment. Eames’ head turns in his palm, his breath tickles Arthur’s skin. “Eames.”  
  
“Somewhere.”  
  
“Did you lose it?”   
  
“I don’t lose everything,” Eames bristles, or tries to. In truth, he doesn’t know where his wand is right at this moment but he doesn’t remember it getting lost in the party, or getting stolen by anyone so it must be safe somewhere that isn’t particularly  _here_.  
  
And it’s true, Eames doesn’t lose everything, but he tends to forget that he’s responsible when he’s too drunk to notice that he’s also got a problem to take care of in his pants that Arthur would be most appropriate to solve.  
  
Because most of the time, Eames is right next to someone busty and beautiful and when he’s drunk, he also forgets that he doesn’t like women in that way.  
  
Arthur had rescued him from some scandalized guest batting away his hands and Eames had thanked him by passing out in his living room.  
  
Arthur forgave him for that, but it’s now time to take stock.  
  
“Do you want to get married someday?” Eames asks him.  
  
Fine, Arthur sighs inwardly. Take stock  _later_. He allows a thoughtful sound through his closed lips as he thinks for a moment, his hand idly lowering even further until it’s nestled right there, underneath Eames’ shirt, his thumb running over the smooth rise of Eames’ collarbone.  
  
“Just because Mal and Cobb got married last night doesn’t mean—"  
  
Eames interrupts him with a sharp nudge of his shoulder against Arthur’s thigh. “I’m not getting sentimental about that.” Arthur wouldn’t exactly use the world sentimental but Eames always knows what Arthur’s about to say next, or in this case, what he wants to say in expense of Eames’ pride.   
  
(Eames likes to ruin things when he doesn’t like them.)  
  
“Then what the hell are you talking about?” Arthur raises an eyebrow down at him, his voice soft despite the impatience of his words.   
  
Eames looks up at him, turning so that he’s lying straight on his back. Arthur’s hand turns as Eames does, coming to rest on the hard patch of his sternum.  
  
“Marriage, Arthur,” he replies. “I’m talking about marriage.”  
  
Arthur knew as much. “What about marriage?”  
  
“You,” Eames hesitates, and Arthur’s breath catches when Eames doesn’t speak right away. “And marriage.”  
  
Arthur exhales both relief and impatience. “This is a game, right? I’m supposed to—"  
  
Eames grunts, and pushes himself off the couch too quickly for someone hungover. He sways on his feet for a moment before getting his bearings together and making his way to the kitchen.   
  
(Stumbling into random pieces of furniture as he goes.)  
  
“Are you going to propose to me?” Arthur asks, trying to sound indifferent. He’s half-way successful, but ‘propose’ is a word that doesn’t go well in his throat. It catches, and his breath is stuck with it.  
  
Eames pokes head out the side of the fridge. “Do you want me to?”  
  
Arthur thinks about it for a moment. Yes. And no. “No,” is what he goes with.  
  
Eames allows a smile, and Arthur almost doesn’t see it when he ducks his head back into the fridge so quickly that he’s pretty sure Eames had bumped his head somewhere in there, from the sound of rattled bottles and the slight jerk of the whole fridge.  
  
“But are you?”  
  
Eames draws himself up with a carton of milk in one hand and a carton of leftovers from the wedding reception in the other. “You don’t want me to.”  
  
Arthur presses on, standing up and nearing Eames with a sudden seriousness that even Eames sobers a little.  
  
He drinks from the carton (God damn it, Eames, use a glass, Arthur almost wants to say) a little too thoughtfully.   
  
Arthur looks at him expectantly, standing across the kitchen table from Eames. “Well?”  
  
Eames shrugs. “It’s a hard time,” he starts, once he’d swallowed down his mouthful of milk. He wipes his lips with the back of his hand. “They were lucky nothing happened yesterday. I was afraid something would.”  
  
So was Arthur. He’d kept his hand inside his pocket, gripping the handle of his wand, all throughout the ceremony. But he doesn’t tell Eames that because Eames tends to de-stress Arthur by distracting him completely and he didn’t want to be distracted, when Mal was beautiful in her dress and Cobb was grinning like a fool and they were both beautiful, they really were, and it was a grand time and he wasn’t going to spend it completely fucked through by Eames.  
  
“My point is,” Eames continues. “Who knows what will happen in the next several weeks and where we’ll be after that.”  
  
Months, Arthur wants to say. He’s done the numbers, he’s attended the planning sessions, and he’s written out all the possible outcomes of this fucking war and it’s going to take months. Even years. Not weeks.  
  
He hopes to God, it’s not weeks.  
  
Eames leans forward and stares at him and Arthur knows that Eames is seeing what Arthur doesn’t want him to see.  
  
They kiss, because it’s what they do when they don’t want to talk.  
  
Eames’ hand is cupping the back of his neck, and the table digs into their hips, but Eames is reassuring him with languid strokes of his tongue against his teeth.  
  
Arthur sighs into his mouth and when they part, Eames smiles at him.  
  
“I don’t want to marry you,” Arthur says again. “But I do love you.”  
  
Eames smirks around the milk carton at his lips. He winks, “I know.”  
  
Arthur rolls his eyes but his smile doesn’t fade just yet until an owl swoops in from the living room.  
  
The envelope lands on the kitchen table, an unmistakable seal gluing it shut.  
  
That’s when Arthur stops smiling and soon enough, they’re into their clothes, with their wands wedged in their sleeves, and they don’t talk about marriage or themselves for a long time afterwards.  
  
They have a job to do.  
  
***  
  
They’re in The Three Broomsticks, all thirty of them cramped into the small space in the room above the main hall. This isn’t where they usually meet but it’s the middle of term and Hogwarts is teeming with students. It would be too big of a risk, Miles had said.  
  
“Saito’s expanding towards France,” Miles explains after they’ve all ushered in and deposited their coats in the downstairs closet.   
  
Rosmerta clicked her tongue at every drop of melted snow that blemished her floor but Eames, as Eames usually does, reassures her with a disarming smile.  
  
(Arthur elbowed him as they climbed the stairs.  
  
“Honestly, darling,” Eames purrs into his ear, pulling Arthur in by his hip. “I’m taking one for the team here, really. If I don’t ease my way in—"  
  
Arthur grimaces at Eames’ word choice, to which Eames only smirks.  
  
“—We won’t be getting any more free Butterbeer, now would we?”  
  
Would  _I_ , Arthur amended in his head, because Eames can afford a hundred Butterbeers in one sitting if he so chooses. He’s an Eames, he comes from old money and pure blood. He can afford anything. Arthur learns early on that Eames only chooses not to because Arthur can’t.)  
  
Cobb nods, outlining a pattern on the map lain out on the table. Behind him trails an army of painted Death Eaters, burning paper-flames on paper-buildings as they went from Etchingham to Robertsbridge until his finger stops at a yet-burnt node and stays there.  
  
He and Eames share a look. Always one step ahead of the others, they are, and Miles is right there with them.  
  
“Hastings,” Eames says.  
  
Cobb nods. “End game.”  
  
Miles elaborates for the rest of them. “He’s crossing the channel straight on to French soil.”  
  
Arthur feels dread, a cold ball that drags down the rest of his nerves with it as it plummets ever downwards. Saito crossing over to France means that this would become an international affair, that the Death Eaters are shaping up to be much more than the Wizarding World can handle.  
  
Crossing the channel doesn’t mean finding a ship and sailing right through it.  
  
Crossing the channel means a dozen Portkeys and a sudden army of purists invading French coastal towns.  
  
They all begin to realize this and a sudden, heavy silence descends upon the group.  
  
“Does that really mean that they’re going to France?” Nash asks. He fidgets a little as he speaks.   
  
They all turn to look at him and Arthur almost pities his friend, because this always happens to Nash, and he’s usually the one who defends him from Eames and Cobb and their relentless teasing when they were much younger.  
  
But the Order is not Hogwarts, and this is a much different game that they’re playing.  
  
“Yes,” Cobb answers for Miles. “The pattern lines up. Saito takes London,” and they all wince at the very fresh memory of an onslaught on West End, where many Muggles had died and even more witches and wizards had stumbled away with only half their lives intact. “And when that doesn’t get a response, he tears down the neighbors.”  
  
Nash shakes his head, stuttering a little, but his spirit more than makes up for the slight quiver in his voice, “Saito doesn’t—"  
  
“Nash,” Eames interrupts, and it’s all that Nash needs to shrink in on himself and keep quiet for the rest of the meeting.  
  
“Is Fischer heading this one?” Arthur pipes up, twirling his   
l in between his fingers. He pities Nash, he really does, but there are times when even he has no room for anything else.  
  
Miles shakes his head. “Saito’s heading it himself.”  
  
Cobb curses, and so does Eames, and soon enough, the whole room erupts in a chaos of panic and too many ideas and too much uproar all at once.  
  
Arthur grimaces at the rush of both dread and noise sucking out all the air from his ears. He puts down his quill and brings up his hand to ease the ache from his head but Eames is already there.  
  
Eames grasps his hand, squeezing it in the hopes of being reassuring. Arthur looks up at him, reveling in the warmth of his fingers and how Eames’ thigh is just there, pressed up against his. He brings their hands down underneath the table.  
  
“Arthur.”  
  
Arthur grits his teeth at his voice. It’s too calm, he thinks. Too calm and he shouldn’t be calm because this is a war they’re getting into and nothing is calm about fucking war.  
  
“Arthur,” Eames tries again, squeezing Arthur’s hand a little tighter. “It’s going to be alright.”  
  
***  
  
Eames is wrong.  
  
***  
  
Of their thirty witches and wizards, ten fall dead at Hastings.  
  
Eames stumbles away with an unconscious Arthur in his arms and they both lick their wounds at some cottage that Arthur hadn’t realized Eames owned.  
  
It takes them both three weeks to finally get themselves together and even then, Eames’ chest still aches when he breathes, and Arthur’s leg buckles when he walks.  
  
***  
  
On the day that Philippa is born, Cobb isn’t there.  
  
Arthur smiles down at the bundle of flushed pink cheeks and bleary eyes. “She’s beautiful, Mal.”  
  
Mal nods tiredly, and falls asleep almost immediately after.  
  
Arthur sighs and sits down on the chair beside the bed; the only chair in the room.  
  
This is no place for a baby. Hell, it’s no place for anyone to give birth in.  
  
This is a rundown shack in downtown London that Arthur had been renting for the past few weeks specifically for this purpose because Cobb is out there and so is Eames and they’re fighting the fight that Arthur’s supposed to as well.  
  
But Cobb asks him to stay and so does Mal and Arthur knows he can’t refuse.  
  
“You’re going to be a Gryffindor, just like Cobb,” Arthur tells Philippa and she looks up at him with eyes so wide and so startlingly blue that he forgets for a moment that if he pulls down the wards and looks outside the window, there’s nothing beautiful at all that he’ll see.  
  
That half of London is scorched to the ground, and that maybe they won’t last another day in here, with too little food and the both of them, he and Mal, itching to go back to the war because there too many Death Eaters, and the Ministry isn’t ready, and this is Philippa and she’s a day old, and it’s Arthur holding her, not her father.  
  
***  
  
“Eames.”  
  
Eames grunts from inside the drawn curtains of his four-poster.  
  
“Eames.”  
  
A grunt, a shift of the curtains, Eames’ foot sticking out from underneath his blankets.  
  
Arthur sighs and flicks his wand to blast the curtains right out of the metal rings.  
  
Eames is naked.  
  
He’s always naked.  
  
“Bloody hell, Arthur,” Eames sits up, blearily, the sheets pooling down on his lap and all that Arthur sees is the bare skin of his chest.  
  
But Arthur’s much too used to the sight already to let it bother him. “We’re late.”  
  
Eames blinks the sleep from his eyes and checks the grandfather clock. “I’m not supposed to be here.”  
  
They’re in the Gryffindor tower. Arthur belongs there and so does Cobb, but Eames does not. He belongs underground, with all the other Slytherins, but for some reason or another he’s charmed his way through most of Arthur’s fellow sixth year friends. How Shacklebolt had let Eames sleep in his bed, Arthur did not want to know.  
  
“But I’m still here,” Eames grins.  
  
Arthur smirks. “Yeah, I can see that.”  
  
“Fuck Potions,” Eames dismisses with a derisive snort and shifts in the bed to pat at the empty space beside him.  
  
It’s a very narrow bed.  
  
“Well?” Eames raises an eyebrow.  
  
Arthur rolls his eyes in response, but it doesn’t take much for him to drag himself out of bed and clamber onto Eames’. (Shacklebolt’s.)  
  
They miss Potions, as well as Charms.  
  
(As well as lunch, Cobb and Nash had cared to point out, but neither of them cared so much.  
  
Arthur did but Eames had always been a very bad influence.)  
  
***  
  
“And you’re going to be good at Potions,” Arthur tells Philippa, weaving a very intricate life for her in his head that involves none of the Order and none of the Death Eaters, that has Cobb and Mal, and her Uncles Arthur and Eames.   
  
Philippa gurgles.  
  
“You’re going to be better at it than Yusuf.” Arthur snorts. “Yeah, you’d probably meet him at some point. He’s the head of Slytherin now.”  
  
He eases the frown on her little brow with a swipe of his thumb.   
  
“But don’t worry about that. You’re going to be a Gryffindor and your grandfather Stephen will be your head of house,” Arthur smiles proudly. “You’re a lucky girl.”  
  
The smile slowly grows to a grin. “And you’re never going to miss any classes, right? Not like me, or your Uncle Eames and Uncle Nash. In fact, you’re never going to meet a man like Eames, you never should. He shot my OWLs to hell, you know.”  
  
Arthur sighs, and the grin blinks out from his face. “You’re going to be Head Girl, just like your mother, and you’re never going to have to run from very, very bad people.”  
  
Ever.  
  
***  
  
Arthur is wrong, too.  
  
***  
  
They run for several hundred miles and three years, and they’re still in England, because so is Saito and so is Fischer and they never stop fighting so the Order doesn’t either.  
  
When James is born, both Arthur and Eames aren’t there.  
  
They hear about it some few weeks later, in between skirmishes and massacres that need cleaning up after, and the Three Broomsticks is far too large for their fast dwindling numbers.  
  
“You’re godfather, by the way,” Cobb tells Eames after the meeting.  
  
Arthur smiles under his hand and pretends to be busy with a map that doesn’t need intense reading.  
  
Eames doesn’t mind, because he’s trying very hard not to smile too widely. “That’s the worst idea you’ve ever come up with, Cobb.”  
  
“That’s what I said,” Mal interjects, her arm wound around Cobb’s.  
  
They’re both tired, with circles around their eyes that draw out the lines on their young faces. But they’re smiling and they’re happy and Arthur and Eames, they worry about Hastings, and they worry about devastated London, but they give them this.  
  
Because they’re not the only ones who need it.  
  
“Well,” Eames scoffs in mock indignation. “I’m relieved you have such confidence in me, then.”  
  
Cobb shrugs sheepishly. He smiles at Mal, then grins at Eames. “Arthur’s already Philippa’s, so it’s only logical, right? Isn’t that how these couple things go anyway?”  
  
Arthur and Eames both raise their eyebrows. They exchange a look over Cobb’s shoulder.  
  
“Couple things,” Arthur echoes for Eames.  
  
Mal laughs. “Mr and Mr Eames.”  
  
Eames grimaces, “I’ll be paying for that one, you realize.”  
  
Mal laughs again, and so does Cobb, and for a moment they don’t worry about the war.  
  
They sip the Butterbeers that Rosmerta brings up from the kitchen she’d closed hours ago, stowing away a map that they’re trying very hard not to think about again for the rest of the night. And they talk about Philippa, and James.  
  
Arthur holds Eames’ hand under the table, Eames’ fingers playing at the pulse at Arthur’s wrist.  
  
For a while, it’s fine. This is fine.  
  
***  
  
But all good things come to an end, and Arthur and Eames are both loathe to admit how ignorant they had been to even hope that things would not end as they will.  
  
***  
  
As they do.  
  
***  
  
Arthur wakes up to an insistent banging on the door. In an instant, he’s on his feet, and so is Eames, and they both have their wands grasped tightly in their hands. Never mind that Eames is down to his boxers, or that Arthur’s hair is sticking up in places.  
  
Their hearts thunder in their chests as they inch their way out into the hallway.  
  
“Who is it?” Arthur calls out from several feet away from the door.  
  
Eames’ fingers tighten around his wand, with a dozen counter-spells, hexes, and an Unforgivable Curse or two waiting on the tip of his tongue.  
  
“It’s Cobb.”  
  
The tension snaps, and they both breathe.  
  
Arthur charms the door open with a flick of his wand and Cobb stumbles in, dripping wet, but the weather outside the window is clear and dry.  
  
“You alright?” Eames hurries to Cobb’s side as Arthur pushes past them to lock the door, casting several other wards just in case.  
  
Cobb nods shakily. “Yeah. Weather’s a bit bad.”  
  
Eames looks doubtful, and he shares a look with Arthur that says as much. “Sit down.”  
  
Cobb doesn’t. Instead, he fishes out a shiny object from his pocket and puts it firmly in Eames’ hand.  
  
Eames opens his fist, and he and Arthur both catch the glint of the faint light from outside the window on the shiny polish of—  
  
\--a top.  
  
“What is this?”  
  
“A Portkey,” Cobb says in a rush. “I need you to come with me.”  
  
He says this to Eames and Arthur looks away for a moment, mumbling an excuse to off and go into the kitchen. To fix some coffee, he says.  
  
When he looks up again, he has the one cup of coffee for himself, because he knows he’s the only one who’ll be staying long enough to drink it.  
  
Eames has shrugged on a random shirt, an arm already halfway through a sleeve of his coat. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, Arthur.”  
  
Cobb is already at the door, his hand impatiently fiddling with the doorknob.  
  
Arthur dispels the wards with a wave of his wand, but he’s not looking at Cobb. “Where are you going?”  
  
Eames hesitates and Arthur sees the doubt there that he had never seen before. But Eames doesn’t let him speak and they kiss, for a moment, a lingering kiss that tastes oddly like an apology.  
  
***  
  
“Secret keeper, huh?” Arthur says bemusedly, testing the weight of the top in his hand. It doesn’t weigh a thing next to something unexplainably heavy that fills out Arthur’s chest.  
  
Eames sighs, rubbing his eye with the back of his thumb. “It appears so.”  
  
Arthur’s not hurt. It’s only logical, he rationalizes because Eames has known Cobb since they were children, from social events from the parties or whatever else the Purebloods did to entertain themselves and they’ve been friends despite Cobb being a Gryffindor and Eames being a Slytherin. Despite all that and a lot of other things.  
  
(That the Eames family is a publicly known supporter of Sato. That Eames’ father had been a Knight before he had been a member of the Inner Circle.  
  
That Eames knows risk; that Eames also knows when to quit when things get too messy.)  
  
But Arthur doesn’t want to think of all of that yet he does, and it disappoints him a little.  
  
Eames sighs again, and wraps his arms around Arthur until not even Arthur’s stubbornness could keep him frozen when he’s pressed up against Eames’ chest, and his face is buried in Eames’ neck, that even as he breathes he smells Eames.  
  
“They’re going to come after you.”  
  
“No one knows I’m the Keeper, Arthur,” Eames reassures him.   
  
“Except me.”  
  
Eames nods, and Arthur feels the stubble of his cheek scratch his ear. “I trust you.”  
  
Arthur catches his breath on something, and he forgets for a moment that he does. His head swims when he needs to.  
  
Eames kisses his cheek, and his arms tighten, and Arthur finds himself hugging him back. The top digs into his palm and Eames’ shoulder blade. It’s sharp, and it wakes him up from something he doesn’t want to face anymore.  
  
***  
  
Saito finds out. They don’t know how but he does, and Arthur discovers this when Eames stumbles inside their apartment bleeding from a gash down his side.  
  
“Fuck,” Arthur curses as Eames collapses into his arms.  
  
He hauls him bodily to the couch, and he doesn’t even notice that his arms strain under Eames’ weight, or that sweat is beading at his brow, or that his heart has probably stopped and so has his lungs.  
  
He seizes up, his mind wiped blank, and he can only watch with detached amazement how his hands move too quickly on Eames’ body, checking every limb, unbuttoning his shirt.  
  
What he sees is a wash of dark, red blood, staining his coat a much darker shade of red.   
  
He doesn’t stutter when he utters the right charms, nor does his fingers waver when he bandages the wound after wards, and taps Eames awake on the cheek, smearing blood on his face.  
  
He breathes when Eames’ eyes flutter open.  
  
“Fuck,” he shudders, and finds himself too spent that his hands slip on the couch.  
  
Eames grunts under his weight, and Arthur feels his hand shake where it lands on his thigh.  
  
“Still alive.”  
  
“You’re a fucker,” Arthur grits out, but he doesn’t mean it, and Eames knows that he doesn’t, because Arthur is kissing him too deeply that Eames can barely even move.  
  
Eames smiles weakly when Arthur pulls away, a blood-stained hand twisting in Arthur’s equally stained shirt. “A fucker, sure, but a live one, aren’t I? Still kicking.”  
  
Arthur nods. That’s what matters.  
  
***  
  
But it’s not enough.  
  
“Nash.”  
  
Eames looks up from the paper in his hands. “What about Nash?”  
  
“I trust him.”  
  
Eames raises an eyebrow. “I know you do. What about him?”  
  
Arthur meets his gaze with a stubborn set to his jaw. “I don’t want you to be the Keeper anymore.”  
  
Eames opens his mouth, ready to say No. No.  
  
Absolutely not.  
  
But he sees Arthur’s face, and knows that Arthur had spent many hours trying to remove the stain on the couch, and even more hours spent by Eames’ side in the days that followed the incident.  
  
Eames nods. “Okay.”  
  
***  
  
“What’s this, then?” Eames asks, looking down at some slim circular disc in his palm.  
  
“A Portkey.”  
  
Eames frowns. “I don’t need one.”  
  
Arthur holds up a shiny red die. “I have one too.”  
  
“Arthur,” Eames sighs, shaking his head.  
  
Arthur holds up a hand. “Just listen to me.”  
  
Eames does.  
  
“I don’t—" Arthur begins.  
  
Eames waits a bit more, because Arthur had asked him to, and Arthur doesn’t know why that stops him more than the sudden rush of both panic and dread that pools low in his belly.  
  
“I don’t want to,” Arthur begins again. “To—"  
  
Eames pockets the chip, and tries to smile. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes and Arthur hates it when Eames pretends but there are times when they both need to not because it makes them feel any better but because it’s the only way to go about things anymore.   
  
“Half-bloods,” Eames says with a snort. “I could’ve done perfectly well with a Gobstone, you know.”  
  
Arthur shrugs sheepishly. “It’s a poker chip.”  
  
“Poker?” Eames shakes his head at the word.  
  
Arthur smirks.   
  
“What’s got you all smug about?” Eames narrows his eyes.  
  
“I know something you don’t.”  
  
Eames raises his eyebrows. “You’re smug about the fact that I know not a bloody thing about your Muggle references.”  
  
“Exactly.”  
  
“That’s cheating. I’m a Pureblood,” Eames points out, as if Arthur needs a reminder.  
  
“Yeah, well, you boast about your virgin sacrifices all the time, so.”  
  
Eames grabs him by the arm, and they’re both laughing, with their Portkeys tucked away in their pockets. Arthur’s pushed down onto the bed and soon enough, Eames is pressed right on top of him, grinning triumphantly. “For the last time, I was not a virgin when that happened.”  
  
Arthur gapes at him for a moment.  
  
Eames laughs and kisses him. “Alright, alright, we’re even.”  
  
“What?” Arthur snorts, perfectly content with where he is, with Eames’ hands on either side of his head. “I already knew you haven’t been a virgin since you were born.”  
  
“Why you little bastard,” Eames breathes in mock offense, and proceeds to show Arthur that yes, Eames hadn’t been a virgin then, and he’s not a virgin now.  
  
Arthur doesn’t always like being proved wrong but there are times when even Eames makes defeat feel so fucking good.  
  
***  
  
Cobb and Mal die on a Tuesday.  
  
***  
  
Eames explodes.  
  
He blasts off the door to Nash’s apartment with a rage of too much emotion in such powerful magic and soon enough, Nash is bleeding out through his nose.  
  
He dangles from the floor by an invisible chokehold around his neck.   
  
“What the fuck did you do?” Eames roars at him, his cheeks flushed red with so much anger that Arthur had never seen.  
  
Nash splutters, kicking air.  
  
“You fucking  _fucking_  coward!” Eames throws his hand upward and Nash flies from the restraints of Eames’ magic, his head smashing up against the ceiling, and he falls on a heap on the floor.  
  
He doesn’t move.  
  
Arthur doesn’t bother to check if he’s still alive.  
  
But Eames does, and Arthur doesn’t know if he’s disappointed that Nash’s chest rises and falls, and that his heart is still strong underneath Eames’ fingers on his throat.  
  
They search him—they find Cobb’s top in his pocket, they find Cobb’s wand.  
  
They roll up his sleeve.  
  
Arthur grimaces, and he chokes on too much that he staggers back against the wall. He feels weightless and heavy both at the same and the sensation tears at his heart.  
  
Eames, however.  
  
***  
  
Eames is merciless.  
  
***  
  
“You’re wanted for murder,” Miles tells him the morning after.   
  
Eames doesn’t say a word, and neither does Arthur when Miles turns to look at him for answers.  
  
On the table is the Daily Prophet, Eames’ face in a contortion of rage, wiped out by an explosion of bright light that in black and white, Arthur can’t tell if it’s green or any other color.  
  
He was there, he remembers it well, but he chooses not to, because Miles is piercing him with eyes too knowledgeable, and Arthur feels the insistent prodding at the base of his skull.  
  
He’s no Occlumens, but he’s learned from Eames enough to know when to not think about certain things he doesn’t want anyone else to know.  
  
But Miles doesn’t need explanation. He only gives them a pouch of Galleons, and sends them off to the middle of nowhere, trusting them to take care of his grandchildren.  
  
***  
  
Eames leaves, sometimes for days, sometimes for hours, but he always comes back.  
  
This time, he doesn’t.  
  
***  
  
Arthur feels the familiar rush of broken wards and he looks up, expecting to find Eames.  
  
He’s met with a wand, and several armed men.  
  
“You’re hereby arrested for the murder of Dominic and Mallorie Cobb,” he says in a voice so toneless that Arthur forgets that he has a wand in his pocket, that his die on the kitchen table, that Philippa and James are sleeping upstairs.  
  
That Eames is supposed to be here and no one else has—  
  
\--A flash of light, and Arthur doesn’t have the chance to think about these things anymore.  
  
***  
  
Eames is sent to Azkaban by a court of fools.  
  
He’s a traitor; he’s a Pureblood; his father is a Death Eater; he’s a Slytherin.  
  
They circle and plummet in Arthur’s head as he sits at the stands and watches Eames from so far away. And they don’t look at each other, because Eames can’t find him, and Eames can’t hear him, over the din of balding heads and judging eyes, and the noise of the conceited and ignorant who yell the loudest, who the point, and blame, and want him dead.  
  
They win the war.  
  
Arthur comes home after the celebration, much too sober, to two children sleeping in his and Eames’ bed.  
  
He lays down beside them and he thinks maybe this is fine, that James and Philippa are there to need him to keep it together.  
  
He sends letters that are never answered, because Azkaban is Azkaban, and the world thinks that the souls inside its walls no longer exist.  
  
Arthur rolls his die in his pocket, and thinks maybe if he charms it the right way, if he learns new spells, if he asks Miles, that it will take him to Eames.  
  
But he doesn’t, because he knows that the poker chip is elsewhere, and Eames is no longer where Arthur can reach him, and James and Philippa need him more than Eames does and Eames will understand this, Arthur reassures himself as he takes out his die and throws it inside his closet drawer.  
  
END


End file.
